International Literacy Day – 8 September, is a day to celebrate the power of reading and writing, and to remind us why literacy matters to every child.
International Literacy Day 2026 was especially significant for Puku. We were thrilled to launch our new Puku website. It has been a long journey, with many twists and turns, and we know that the journey is far from over. This site is a work in progress, and we look forward to feedback from all of you who it is meant to serve — everyone involved in producing, sharing, discovering and enjoying children’s books.
Puku Children’s Literature Foundation is an award-winning reading promotion and book curation organisation that aims to ensure all children have access to quality, culturally relevant literature in the languages they understand. The name ‘puku’ means book in Sepedi and Northern Sotho
We review children’s books in all our languages, build catalogues of recommended titles in each South African language, and run an online bookshop so that those books are easier to find and buy.
‘It is my wish that the voice of the storyteller will never die in Africa, that all children in the world may experience the wonder of books, and that they will never lose the capacity to enlarge their earthly dwelling place with the magic of stories’.
– Nelson Mandela
We review books. Puku trains teachers, librarians, students and literacy workers to write critical reviews of children’s books in multiple languages, and we publish those reviews to help others choose the best books for their learners and children.
We build catalogues. With our partners, we produce catalogues of recommended children’s books in each of South Africa’s languages, selected by independent panels in each language of academics, teachers, librarians and language specialists.
We sell books. 65% of homes with children younger than 10 years old don’t have a single picture book, according to the National Reading Survey 2023. Our online bookshop makes it possible to buy the books we recommend, and others, with delivery anywhere in South Africa.
We celebrate our storytellers. Puku has a long history of bringing children, families and authors together around stories. We are committed to children’s literature rooted in our storytelling traditions. The annual Puku Storytelling Festivals held in Makhanda from 2013-18, showcased and celebrated the work of storytellers, writers and artists in isiXhosa. They were the first and so far only indigenous language storytelling and children’s literature festival.
“You cannot infect a person with a disease that you do not have yourself. Similarly teachers cannot infect children with the love of reading if they are not avid readers themselves.” – Sindiwe Magona.
Puku’s book reviews provide informed perspectives on children’s books in South Africa’s languages.
Reviews are published in the reviewer’s language. That means a review of an isiZulu book is written in isiZulu, not summarised in English. If you’re choosing books for children who read in indigenous languages, that matters a lot.
Puku reviews children’s books through a structured process developed over years of conducting multilingual review workshops. Reviewers are qualified practitioners – teachers, librarians, academics, and literary activists – who have completed Puku-designed review training.
Puku Children’s Literature Foundation NPC, 136 Barry Hertzog Avenue, Greenside, Randburg, 2193 | PostNet Suite 173, Pvt Bag X2600, Houghton, 2041
